Saturday is for Dan Kimball’s Hair, Friends & Family

Well, I wasn’t able to post this yesterday as intended, so I’m going ahead and pretending that today is Friday…only better! And since Dan Kimball is coming to be with us here in Columbia, Maryland next Tuesday, I thought I’d start with a focus on him.

Ever seen anyone get their hair cut in a church service? Well, Dan Kimball has done that and in fact, he posted an article about it on his own blog this week. Click here to read it. If you know anything at all about Dan, you probably know that his “hair” is kind of “a signature” item in his personna (my opinion, not necessarily his). But he has also used haircuts, among other things, to share his faith in Christ with unchurched and unreached people.

Dan’s student colleague and common friend, David Phillips, has posted several items about Dan on his blog over the years. In fact, David and Ed Stetzer have had some fun at Dan’s expense, too. Here’s a picture David created to envision Ed with Dan’s haircut. You can read Dan’s blog where he calls Ed out by clicking here. Hmmm, I’m not so sure rockabilly hair works for you, Ed.

In weightier issues, Stetzer chimed in on multisite churches this week in a significant way. As Ed points out “everybody’s talking about multisite these days.” You can see what Ed thinks, along with Alan Hirsch, and numerous commenters, by clicking here.

On other matters, Joel Rainey, author of Planting Churches in the Real World, posted an interesting item on his blog this week. He declares he’s figured out the “One Vice Guaranteed to Kill a New Church.” You can read about it here.

My wife, Joye, posted a new item on her blog this week about our children and a vacation trip we made to the Magic House in St. Louis. It delves into the issues of truth and shadow in life. Check it out here.

And finally, since it is Mother’s Day weekend, here’s a YouTube video about mothers that I have enjoyed. I hope you do too. Until next week…

Greatest Hits: Year One

Today we celebrate the one year anniversary of the start of this blog, “Moving at the Speed of God.” MSG has been an attempt to do several things: to share some of my story and learning (especially from the Scriptures), to help you see the ministry lessons in real life (often found in sports analogies) and perhaps most of all, to challenge our thinking on church and church planting issues.

We began this blog at our organization’s website, http://bcmd.org/church-multiplication as “David Jackson’s blog” on the Ministry Resources Guide and two weeks later moved it to the current WordPress site. From very humble beginnings (the stats page says we had only 28 “hits” in May last year) to being acknowledged by at least one aggregate SBC blog website as one of the 64 blogs important enough to be included in their March Madness event, my journey with the blog has been exciting and enjoyable. Thanks for your participation and dialogue here with me!

So without further ado, here are the highlights from year one.

Most Viewed Post from “Monday Morning Rewind.” Monday Morning Rewind has been a regular addition for much of the year. It is a weekly post that shares my sermon notes from the previous day’s message.  Take a Look in the Mirror on Matthew 7.1-6 on March 30 from my series on the Sermon on the Mount caught the most interest from visitors.

Most Viewed Post from “Fridays are for Family & Friends.” Another regular week post is my FFF each week. The post on Friday the 13th, Fridays are for Friends & Family 03.13.09 with our BCM/D recruiting video, my daughter’s first sports writing attempt (hockey, no less!) , Dr. Lee’s podcast forecasting the future and church plant Iron Hill in New Castle, Delaware, were highlighted.

Most Viewed Post on a News Item. The inauguration of our new President earlier this year garnered a great deal of attention. However, it was Rick Warren’s involvement, both before the event and as a result of the event, that impacted those who came to my site. Rick Warren’s Invocation at the Inauguration was the most interesting news item I posted for viewers this year.

Most Viewed Post on a Sports Item. Most readers here at MSG know that I’ve a big New England sports fan (Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics). However, it wasn’t any of my articles about these teams that attracted your attention. More than any other, the post about Tim Tebow and the National Collegiate Football Championship Game was read by you.

Most Viewed Post on a Live Blogging Event. BCM/D Annual Meeting: The Pastor’s Conference with Ed Stetzer. Dr. Stetzer attracts a lot of attention whereever he goes to speak. So when he came to our Annual Convention and was the focal speaker at our Pastor’s Conference, my live blogging of that event caused a large spike in viewership both here and at my Twitter account.

Most Viewed Post on Church Planting. The publication of my book PlantLIFE: Principles and Practices in Church Planting by Missional Press received more hits than any other post dealing with church planting all year.  Why Student Ministers Make Good Church Planters is less than a month old post but is a fast-gaining runner-up in this category.

Most Views of Any Post All Year: Surprisingly to me, my 25 Random Things about Me post–essentially just a “cut and paste” job from the Facebook phenomenon last year–has been the most viewed post in the history of MSG!

Most Ignored Post All Year. This post, a very early addition to my blog, reflected on an observation by Alan Hirsch that I actually heard him repeat last week at the Exponential Conference. I have found his thought on this challenging and troubling at the same time. If you missed it, you can read Remove the Queen here.

Most Comments on a Post All Year. There have been a flurry (by MSG standards) of comments to Why Student Ministers Make Good Church Planters since it came out last month. Most of them have been by student ministers actually with some great observations and questions of their own.

Most Searched Item All Year. Ever wonder what people search for on a blog? Well, here they searched primarily for 25 Random Things about Me. Paul Harvey and the rest of the story was a distant second.

Most Referrals to My Blog All Year. Far and away, I received the most referrals (source which led others to this blog) from my Facebook account. But when it comes to other blogs, Wally Yocum’s soundofhearts.blogspot.com has had more visitors click through to my site than any other source.

Most Interesting Notice of My Blog. The inclusion of MSG in the SBC Voices Blog Madness was unexpectedly and humbling. While I am pretty sure I was the last addition to the contest (out of 64 blogs) and I didn’t make it into the second round, I was honored to be included, especially in my first year of posting.

Most Click Throughs. More people clicked through my site to My Twitter account than any other. When it came to my blogroll, more click throughs went to my wife’s site, Planting Home. Joye also serves our organization as our Church Planters Spouse and Family Coordinator.

Most Click Throughs to a Photo. This one stumps me. Of all the pictures I have posted on my site, the one that has attracted the most hits is this picture from a worship experience last year at the North American Mission Board’s Summer State Leadership Meeting.

Most Click Throughs to a Video. The video which has been viewed the most this year through my site has been Our Mid-Atlantic Church Planting Recruiting Video.

Biggest Surprise of the Year. The top two posts in terms of number of hits dealt with me personally: 25 things and about me. I certainly didn’t expect that! But I guess it goes to show that people are not just interested in other thoughts; they are interested in the person connected to them.

So thanks to all of you who have journeyed here over the past year. You’ve made the adventure more enjoyable and satisfying. Here’s to year number two, with hopes that it will be more meaningful, interactive and engaging for us all.

Exponential ‘09 – Day Two

Day two at the Conference and it was reported that there were over 3,000 people (mostly planters and planter facilitators) present for the training event.

Rolando and I completed the “pre-intensive” track dealing with “Church Planting for Idiots” this morning with John Burke, author of No Perfect People Allowed, followed in the final morning hour by Vince Antonucci, formerly of Forefront Church in Virginia Beach (he recently moved to Las Vegas to start another church). John, who is the founding pastor and planter of Gateway in Austin, Texas, did a masterful job in talking about leadership decisions that are necessary in a church planting setting. He reminded everybody present that leaders know to ask the right questions, so he guided us through a series of questions that planters must answer to be effective. They included context questions, vision questions, leading through teaching questions, strategy questions and multiplication questions. (If you’re interested in the entire list, comment on this blog and I’ll email them to you.) He stated that the top two keys to being successful as a planter were first, you must lead and second, you must persevere.

Vince Antonucci, who spoke the first afternoon about keeping evangelism in the DNA of your new church plant, turned our attention to the worship experience for the final hour of the morning. He listed several principles that planters need to apply in their worship to be effective. Among them were the following:

• The Unfolding Arms principle: think about how you can keep people far from God from feeling defensive
• The Guest for Dinner principle: treat these people like you would guests invited over to your home
• The Joe DiMaggio principle: remember that every weekend somebody is there for the very first time and act accordingly, and
• The Check Your Influences principle: when seeking people far from God, your influences should be places that have them in mind (typically not churches, but Starbucks, Chuck E. Cheese, etc.).

There were other principles too (again, leave a comment if you want the whole list). Vince did an outstanding job, and left me wanting to learn more.

The afternoon began the first plenary session of the main conference. True North, a worship band from Long Island, New York led us, along with the Urban Poets dance troupe from Mosaic in Los Angeles. Both were outstanding. Tim Keller spoke to us by video about his church planting experience, warning us not to neglect our families for our ministry through a powerful illustration. Then he told us that we can’t avoid planting churches if we read the book of Acts; it’s a required response.

Erwin McManus was the main plenary speaker and he challenged us from Acts 17 to recognize that the “art of movement” requires us to move from our first spaces (Paul talks about the synagogue = church facilities) where we are comfortable, to second spaces (Paul goes to the marketplace), where we can re-engage the culture. In fact, he told us that we can be doing tremendous work in the first space with lots of people, but NEVER even impact the second space at all!

The goal though is to eventually get to the third spaces…for us this is a place we can’t go at all until we are invited or given permission (Paul: “then they took him…”) Here we can impact those beyond our typical reach as the Spirit of God works on them. BUT McManus issued a warning for us: “In any movement, when you create a place for people in the third space, you will lose your place in the first space.” He challenged us to be willing to do that in a powerful appeal. It was, for me, the best message of the day.

After the plenary session ended, I moved into the “Reproducing Movements” track for the breakout times. The first breakout was led by Dave Ferguson, President of Exponential this year and a planter, author and leader of the New Thing Network. He spoke on “Dreaming of a Movement” and outlined through his research and study the “Five Essentials of What I Know So Far about Movements:”

• They all have apostolic leadership. Thus, we need to be uncovering and acknowledging these leaders, and allowing them to lead through their gifting.
• They have a shared dream. All movements capture the heart with a vision of what God wants to do.
• The Gospel of Jesus. This is the core essential, foundational to changed lives among those in the movement.
• Genuine community. The cause creates community, not visa versa.
• Rapid reproduction. New churches start new churches quickly, and they generationally reproduce exponentially.

Ferguson acknowledged his limitations at the beginning (“what I know so far”), but in my opinion fell short of what is necessary to see a movement take place. I will talk about this in a subsequent blog post.

Finally, we ended the day in a second breakout session, led by Alan Hirsch, who talked about the concept of “communitas” which he believes is essential for a movement to happen. This concept takes the idea of community and wraps it around a mission or purpose, born out of pain or a crisis. This bond–going through the experience together–provides a level of intimacy and community that is unable to be experienced apart from the pain. I’ve heard (and read) Hirsch talk about this many times. He’s on point, and was thought-provoking and insightful once again as he applied this reality to the art of movements.

So on we go…day three will feature Craig Groeschel and Bob Roberts, among others. Check back tomorrow on the details of what they shared.

Exponential ‘09 – Day One

I arrived in Orlando Monday morning with my compatriot, Rolando, for the first of four days gathering with a few thousand of the best and brightest church planting leaders from around America. Yes, there are others here too, from the far reaches of the globe, especially since the theme for the week is “The Art of Reproducing Movements.”

We spent much of the day in sessions called “The Idiot’s Guide to Church Planting.” (I know, it seems like type-casting, but I actually chose this track…it seems appropriate.) Led by Vince Antonucci and some administrative experts that have worked the details of church planting in other Virginia settings, the group shared basics essential to effective church planting. It was basically a “basics 101″ type course. Vince did a great job telling his story and focused on how to make sure that evangelism is built into the DNA of every church plant. This is a much needed subject, and in fact, he also seems concerned that so many churches are being started in America and yet, less people are involved in church that a decade ago. His interpretation (and I agree) is that new churches are mostly just reaching other “churched” people who are changing churches, instead of reaching lost people without Jesus–an unfortunate and usually unintended result.

The last two hours of training yesterday were “what” and “how to” details to basic church planting preparation and implementation. Personally, I found it boring and unnecessary, but it may be my experience and perspective speaking. For many who were taking lots of notes, it was obviously helpful.

Last night, Rolando and I went to a dinner meeting hosted by the Upstream Collective, a European church planting initiative. Ed Stetzer and Alan Hirsch were the guests and answered questions that the crowd of 100 or so had submitted previously. Most dealt with missiology, multi-site and missional church (more about this is a subsequent blog post). They were very thought-provoking and challenged a lot of assumptions dealing with church planting models and philosophical underpinnings that are commonly used in America today. It was well worth the investment of time and energy.

Tuesday promises more of the same, with John Burke, Erwin McManus and others on the docket for the sessions ahead. More from Orlando soon…

Fridays are for Friends & Family 03.06.09

Well, it’s Friday and you know what that means: time for a look at some of the other things that are coming my way from friends and family over the past week.  Most of you know that I was given the opportunity to review Ed Stetzer, Richie Stanley and Jason Hayes’ new book “Lost and Found.” I did so earlier this week and you can find that post here. If you go to Dr. Stetzer’s site, you can find a lot of other people and their reviews linked to his post about the reviews of the book. Check their opinions out here.

Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford have retooled the Shapevine missional church e-learning site. The new site is in conjunction with Christianity Today and has all kinds of ways for you and missional leaders to be involved in distance learning, some even with “school credit!” Check out the site (and  why not register?) here. I’m a huge fan and a frequent visitor there myself.

LAST CHANCE!

Registration for Nelson Searcy’s training events here in Baltimore is closing fast. He will be with us on March 17 for his LAUNCH church planting conference and on March 18 for his Evangelism conference in the morning and his Stewardship conference in the afternoon. You can register here (and if you’re connected with my organization, then contact me for discounted rates before you register.)

Podcast of the Week

This week we look back to the podcast I did with J. D. Payne, author of  Missional House Churches and The Barnabas Factors, as well as professor at Southern Seminary. In this podcast Dr. Payne and I talk about his first book and the church planting program at his seminary. You can listen to it here. And you can check out his website, including his blog, here.

Church Planting Website of the Week

The BRIDGE is a church plant that is in its infancy on Kent Island, between the Annapolis and the Eastern Shore. Pastor Jeffrey Pearson has done a fabulous job in establishing this church and its impact throughout the area (even off the island). Check out their website and how you can connect with Jeff here.

On a personal level, I’m a HUGE Red Sox fan and it’s getting to that time of the year where I get serious about all of this. The Boston Globe newpaper has asked Red Sox fans like me to “Rate the Red Sox,” their value to the team from top to bottom. You can participate in the survey here yourself. Then get ready for the season…it ought to be interesting, especially in the AL East.

Finally, my younger daughter and I laughed our way through this YouTube video. If you eat a lot of fast food, then you’ll probably get a kick out of it, too.  So until next time…enjoy!

Friday is for Friends and Family #3

Another week, another chance to highlight what else is happening on the web. And this week we start with the lighter side of things.

Ever pass a church sign while driving that made you go, “huh?” Check out these.

On the more serious side, check out Rick Warren’s interview with Christianity Today magazine on, among other things, why he no longer will wear Hawaiian shirts.

Finally, here’s the link to Alan Hirsch’s current “reading list.” Now that you’ve seen his, what about yours? Write back here and let me know what you’ve been reading lately and what you think of it.

Remember, look for the “Sunday Starter” here tomorrow…

Remove the Queen

So I was reading a book entitled “11 Innovations in the Local Church,” by Elmer Towns, Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird over the weekend, in anticipation of Neil Cole’s visit with us and came across a very provocative thought. 

In the chapter on Organic Church, attributed to author Stetzer I believe, he tells of another well-known Christian author and speaker Alan Hirsch, and an illustration he uses to talk about “the church.”

Hirsch says that the best way to learn how to play the game of chess is to “remove the queen.”  In other words, when you deliberately eliminate your own queen from the game, you are forced to learn how to use the other parts more intentionally and holistically.  You don’t depend upon the queen as a “crutch,” but recognize the value and import of every piece and are able to apply your strategy more strategically and effectively.

Hirsch goes on to say that in the American church today, “the queen” is the Sunday morning experience.  He believes that most churches today are so dependent on this–in calendaring, in budgeting, in energy and time given to preparing, that they don’t do much else, failing to apply the Body holistically to the commission Christ has given us as His church.

I’m teaching through the book of Ephesians currently at the church where I serve, and it’s interesting to note that this book, the most comprehensive treatise in Scripture on the theology and behavior of “the church,” nowhere even mentions the Sunday morning experience (unless you include it in 5:19-21 which appears to speaks to the Christian life 24/7) as a highlighted part of church life.

Perhaps the apostle was more focused on us being the church than just doing church, with the rest of the six and a half-days of the week also in mind.

originally published at http://www.mybcmd.org/blog/5 on June 11, 2008